An apple on the trash heap

Poverty has a permeating stench of decay, desperation, and despair. Raymundo Beltran, a professional boxer, is a man now but the odor still clings to him. He is a defiant warrior in the twilight of his career. Many rounds have been fought both in and out of the ring. Continuously tabbed the underdog; confined to the shadows since he was a teenager.

Some memories are like piercing shards of glass. The pain has dulled but he is haunted by his past. Today he recalls being a hardened 7-year-old with hungry eyes and scraggily arms. He rifles through the garbage debris until he unearths a half-rotten apple.

He crunches his teeth into the skin and devours the flesh of the apple— the juices are pleasantly sweet. The inedible is discarded back into the trash-heap.

The human condition is a constant presence in an English class. I routinely present underdog stories like Raymundo Beltran’s to my students. These stories illustrate our remarkable capacity to overcome adversity and find success at life. Furthermore, these life experiences serve as a tool for building resiliency in young people and provide hope in the unseen.

The stories vary: a basketball team that loses to win, a girl advocating for education in the Middle East, a boy whose legs are amputated after being run over by a train, a man adapting to life with ALS, a young hockey prodigy who inexplicably loses his father to a sudden heart attack, an autistic woman who redefines the cattle industry, or a man falsely imprisoned for 26 years.

Many young people struggle with a myriad of hardships. Adversity can be trauma, stress, or any unforeseen crisis. The good news is that young people have an innate ability to bounce back from adversity and move forward. These students are true underdogs— ordinary people achieving the extraordinary in spite of obstacles.

Unfortunately, adversity happens. There is a tendency to control the world we live in. This is unachievable— life has an unpredictable fragility that defies logic and control. It is the equivalent of finding understanding in a car crash.

Raymundo Beltran’s life is the definition of resiliency. He is a poor, immigrant boxer who has been bruised, bloodied, and knocked down more times than can be counted. Yet, he continuously picks himself up, overcomes obstacles and has forged a better life for his family.

In broken English he conveys life lessons to be gleaned— something good can always come out of something bad. He also implores the importance of focusing on the positives and not dwelling too much on circumstances out of our control. If not now; there is always tomorrow.

Raymundo Beltran’s story consumes a small portion of our class period. The bell sounds— there is the familiarity of notebooks being hastily put away intermixed with the buzzing of students spilling out into the teeming hallway.

Every day is a battle worth fighting. Our students are hungry for the strength and guidance on how to fight their own personal wars. My hope is that today might have yielded an apple.

Blake Livingston teaches English at Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.